


Be Somebody

by kimikokun



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, I can't hug Vereesa so I'm channeling that energy through Jaina, Just some powerful women being soff, Legion era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 22:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20786315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimikokun/pseuds/kimikokun
Summary: The events of the Scourge invasion and Theramore still plague Vereesa's mind. But amongst the stormy seas she finds the lighthouse calling her home.





	Be Somebody

**Author's Note:**

> It isn't Tides (sorry), but I felt like I needed to write this.

_I feel a million miles away, still you connect me in your way_  
_And you create in me, something I would've never seen_  
_ When I can only see the floor, you made my window a door_  
_ So when they say they don't believe, I hope that they see you and me_  
_ After all the lights go down, I'm just the words you are the sound_  
_ A strange type of chemistry, how you've become a part of me_  
_ And when I sit alone at night, your thoughts burn through me like a fire_  
_ You're the only one who knows, who I really am_

Be Somebody – Thousand Foot Krutch

Vereesa wasn’t sure how long she sat and stared out of the large windows of the Vindicaar. The fel infested landscape of Argus all began to blur into a sea of green the longer she looked at it. She wasn’t really seeing it though, memories from another time dancing behind her eyes. A happier time.

A time when she didn’t have to worry about returning to a cold and empty bed. A moment where she could find solace in her children still having a parent if she passed. Where she could wake up and all she had to worry about was proving her ever better hunting skills to her then biggest role model, Sylvanas.

She should have been happy. After years of believing her eldest sister was lost, there she was, porting into the Vindicaar two days prior. It was a bittersweet moment. Her eyes, now a brighter blue than she had ever known held so much hurt. Such anguish. Vereesa didn’t care that the void inhabited her sister, she was just happy to have her Lady Sun back. Though Sylvanas lived, she was so far from how she was before she died. The faction divide only made it harder for Vereesa to reconnect with her fallen sister, if by some miracle they could after how things had gone at the trial. Truly, it had felt to the younger elf as if only her, her boys and Arator were left of the Windrunner lineage.

Yet here Alleria was, giving her heart a swell of hope that she hadn’t felt in so long. She felt comforted to know that her sister was more than happy with how Arator was raised. Vereesa knew Arator was a good kid, following in his father’s path in the Light, but it meant more that Alleria knew it and could see for herself.

For the most part, Vereesa was lost to the happenings around her. So many adventurers came and went between Argus and Dalaran it just became a buzz in the background. She was aware that Alleria was stood next to her, quietly talking to Turalyon but still she couldn’t see them. It wasn’t until she noticed a familiar looking item in one of the passing traveller’s hands that she was pulled out of her reverie.

“Champion, what do you have there?” Vereesa asked intensely, quickly rising to her feet with all her elven grace.

She was vaguely aware that the item was unfortunately in the hand of a Sin’dorei, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the item.

Remembering the tales of the Sunreaver purge, the elf stood stock still in fear coming face to face with the Ranger-General of the Silver Covenant. After a moment of stunned silence, he managed to stammer, “I- it’s a music box.”

The question had been rhetorical. She knew what it was. She would never forget the sight of it.

“Open it,” Vereesa growled.

With shaky fingers, the man complied.

The moment the song hit her sensitive ears; her whole frame began to shake. Fear. Anger. Sadness. It was all mixed into one. A lament for the days forever lost to the Banshee Queen. Over the sound of blood rushing through her ears, she faintly heard Alleria shouting at the man to close it.

Vereesa screwed her eyes together and shook her head furiously, trying desperately to clear the song from her mind but it continued to play. Over and over the Thalassian words played through her mind.

“I need to go,” she choked out, managing somehow to pull away from her sisters worried hand on her arm and hurriedly walk to find an unoccupied storage room.

As soon as the door shut, the tears sprung hot and fast down her cheeks. Of all the days for her to hear that song, it had to be when she was already falling through the pot holes of her memories. She sunk to the floor, her knees weak and felt through the satchel at her hip for the two smooth stones she always kept on her.

The stones felt cool to the touch. Closing her eyes, she brushed her fingers over the deeply carved runes like she had so many times, fingertips alight at the arcane essence inscribed there. It was if she could hear two oceans. The calm gentle waves lapping at the shore of the beach outside of her room at Windrunner Spire and the stormy crashing surf against the jagged rocks that surrounded the coast of Theramore.

Two homes in such a short time ripped from her. Her family. Her husband. Her friends. All gone. She couldn’t bring herself to throw the hearthstones away. They were all she had from those periods of her life. No matter how many times she would sit and squeeze the stones in her bad times, she never activated them.

_Maybe just once _she thought to herself, another part of her mind instantly rebuking her for having such a silly thought. To return to Windrunner Spire would be to trespass on Horde territory. A diplomatic incident she had no desire to get into.

She pocketed the hearthstone her mother gave her and cradled the other in both palms, blinking away the tears to look at the runes her beloved had marked “It’s so hard without you, Rhonin,” she whispered, bringing the stone to press against her forehead as she sobbed.

With an unsteady exhale, she felt for the small amount of arcane she commanded and almost laughed at the familiar warmth that Rhonin had enchanted into the spell came from the stone as she cast.

Eyes closed, the bright lights and warmth of the Draenei vessel faded and was replaced by the biting cold of the sea wind and the harsh tingle of excess mana against her senses.

She didn’t dare open her eyes. She knew what would be there. The buildings reduced to rubble, the deep crater at the centre. Worse, was that she could still see in her mind the black soot outlines of people she had met, vaporised to nothing but marks on the upturned earth.

With the wind came a muted voice she thought for sure was calling her name. A female voice she would be happy to listen to for the rest of her long life. It couldn’t have been real. No one would visit these ruins. Another failed attempt at peace damned to such an insignificant amount of time.

The voice called louder, closer, yet still she sat with her eyes screwed shut. Now, she could hear the tell-tale sound of a mage’s blink and then hurried steps. Steps that didn’t stop until they were right in front of her. Then a thud in the mud beside her before warm soft hands were cupping her cheeks tenderly.

“Vereesa, talk to me. What’s wrong?” Jaina asked worriedly, noting the blue tinge to the elf’s lips and tremble to her body.

What on Azeroth was Jaina doing here? Never in a million years did Vereesa think the human would return here. Then again, she didn’t see herself ever going back either. It had been so long since anyone had heard from Jaina. The ignored letters, the scarce spy reports hinting at her whereabouts. She should have been angry at being abandoned. Angry that the woman she had grown so close to and depended on a little too much had left after the Sunreaver’s reinstatement in Dalaran.

“Everything, Jaina.” Vereesa whispered. “You’re the only one left that understands. We need you at the Broken Shore. _I _need you.”

Jaina sighed. “You know why I’m not there. I cannot deal with seeing the Horde walking through Dalaran. I’m doing what I can against the Legion in other places. I was so close to here. I couldn't help seeing it one more time.”

“I need you.” Vereesa repeated, the full realisation hitting her so hard she could feel the painful squeeze of her chest. In a rush, she flung her arms around Jaina’s waist, pushing her nose against her neck and breathing in deeply, inhaling the comforting scent of sea salt and sweat upon her skin. Her breath left her in shudder as the hands that had left her face wrapped around her torso and the other threaded in the hair at the back of her neck.

“I need you, too.” Jaina admitted quietly, a single tear escaping her usually stoic façade. “You remind me that there is still some good on Azeroth. And that even after everything that happened, you don’t think me a murderer.”

Vereesa growled lowly, pulling back to finally open her eyes and look at the human. Even with her face covered in splatters of red and her hair refusing to be tamed by her loose braid, she still looked as beautiful as ever, her eyes the rich azure she had grown so fond of. “I could _never. _You couldn’t stop Garrosh anymore than you could have stopped Arthas.”

The elf didn’t miss the way Jaina flinched minutely at the mention of her former lover.

“I could have done many things differently. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t kept me sane.”

“Our eyes reflect the same tragedies, Jaina. We helped each other.” Her gaze dropped from her eyes slowly, over the slant of her nose to chapped and split full lips that she had had to drag her attention away from too many times in the past.

This time she didn’t.

This time, she leaned in slow giving every opportunity for the woman to stop her. But she didn’t. The hand tangled in her hair pushed her forward till their lips met. Soft and cautious but filled with so many emotions that Vereesa felt reflected back to her tenfold. Their mouths moved together so perfectly, it was like their hundredth, not first kiss. And then Vereesa carefully brushed her tongue against Jaina’s lips and tasted the ocean spray before she felt her lips part and the human’s tongue meeting hers.

Yes, she missed Rhonin but she had done the hard grieving. The months of never-ending despair at his loss and the trial after. Sometimes it all just piled on top of her. But she knew that Rhonin wouldn’t blame Jaina for anything that happened at Theramore. And that he would be happy if the two of them could find comfort in each other. He was a good man that only wanted the best for his wife and children. Right now and for so long before, Jaina was that.

Slowly they pulled away from each other, only moving to press their foreheads together as they caught their breath.

Vereesa stared into Jaina’s eyes once more, the blue seeming to shine that much brighter with unshed tears. It wasn’t the tears she was seeing though. She saw the anguish of the past. The loneliness. The understanding.

But mostly, she saw hope.

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a pretty depressing thought train this morning that I couldn't get out of my head. I love the two of them so much, they have endured a hell of a lot. Truly powerful women who deserve solace with each other.


End file.
